What’s Growing On

Emerald Coast Growers expands

Emerald Coast Growers has added more than 25,000 square feet of greenhouse space to its Milton, Florida, facility. The new house, a gutter-connected Atlas, has the capacity to hold 13,200 flats and is designed with a natural venting style to combat Florida’s long, high-heat summers. While the new construction will primarily be used for ornamental grass production, the flexible design and equipment setup give Emerald Coast Growers the option to produce different material as needed.

Preview the ASLA awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects has posted photos and information about its 2014 Professional and Student Awards—a collection of exceptional international work—allowing a bit of a preview before the honors are presented at the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Denver on Monday, November 24. The Award of Excellence in the General Design Category went to Gustafson Guthrie Nichol for work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Campus in Seattle. Check out the rest of the awards at the link below. (Photo courtesy of Sean Airhart)

Gardening goes to the library

Like most facilities across the country, the library in Normal, Illinois (and yes,there really is a town named “Normal”),was facing the digital age—and along with shiny new technology came the question of what to do with the long-trusted but now out-of-date card catalog. The solution? Seeds! Seed packets fit nicely into the old drawers that once housed cards sorted according to the Dewey Decimal System.”Borrowing” isn’t quite the same, but patrons are encouraged to share seeds, as long as they’re properly labeled. Sounds like the T-shirt we received for Christmas. It reads: “If you have a library and a garden, you have everything you need.”

IGC East changes venue for2015

The organizers of IGC East have announced that the show will move to the Baltimore Convention Center next year-the dates are August 4 to 6. IGC Chicago will be held at Chicago’s Navy Pier August18 to 20.

American Garden Awards!

After five months of voting, the winners of the National Garden Bureau’s American Garden Awards have been selected. Grand Prize winner is Foxglove Digiplexis Illumination Flame by Cultivaris; second place winner is Petunia Sanguna Radiant Blue by Syngenta Flowers Inc.; and third place went to Celosia Arrabona Red by Pan American Seed Inc.Thirty-two gardens across the U.S. and Canada displayed the plants to facilitate voting by the general public.